State Fair

I made my annual pilgrimage to the Great Minnesota Get Together (Minnesota State Fair) last Friday. Once again I ate (a ton of food), pointed (at and whispered about people), laughed (with Windy and the girls) and walked (most of the 320 acres of the grounds). After picking up my little chickadees from day care (and an afternoon nap) we headed out under a blanket of grey/black clouds, just as it was starting to sprinkle. I had images of having to grab the girls by their hands and running through pelting rain and hurricane force winds to take shelter in the barn, next to the worlds biggest pig, as a tornado ripped through the fair grounds. With Jonathan Yuhas' voice playing in my head -"Scattered showers, sometimes severe beginning at 4pm" - I prayed that he would be wrong and we would have at least a few hours without rain. As a precaution we were set to tackle the rain if it decided to "rain on our parade" (HAHA! Bet ya didn't know I got jokes too! Multi-talented, that's me) with a rain coat, a poncho and a Dora the Explorer umbrella. As it turned out, the showers never materialized and the rain gear stayed stowed away in the stroller. It was actually a perfect afternoon/evening, cool, breezy and small crowds (seems as though most people took the forecast to heart). The only down point for me was when I realized that I had forgot my (actually "the boy's") camera and wouldn't be able to take pics.

Here are some fair (food) highlights:
Pork Chop on a Stick!

Always a fair favorite. And it's gotta be Petersons. There are some others but they are not as good! It's our first stop (eat it right there on the street with the juices rolling down your arm) and the last stop to get a chop to take home!





Gizmo


Another yearly stop is the Gizmo stand way at the Northend of the fair. The Gizmo is ground beef and Italian sausage with a special sauce and seasonings, covered with melted mozzarella cheese and served on a delicious toasted Italian roll. Windy hipped me to these. You should have seen us passing the Gizmo back and forth. Anyone watching would have thought we were sharing a crackpipe. I love my friend but you better believe I was keeping an eye on the number of bites she was taking. Food has been known to break up years long friendships. I was trying to inhale the Gizmo so fast that I spilled some of it down my shirt and you know I was not wasting any of it, so my hand went right down the front of my shirt to fish out the escaped meat and slurp it up!!!





Big Fat Bacon





(One-third pound of bacon, fried and caramelized with maple syrup and served on a stick.)
This is a newbie at the fair and let me tell you, it is ABSOLUTELY DE-LI-CIOUS! They have taken the pig to A WHOLE NUHVER LEBEL!! This may even give the pork chop a run for it's money! It's kinda like on Saturday morning when you've finished your pancakes but you still have a piece of bacon left and you rub the bacon through the syrup that's left on the plate. It's all sweet and salty. YUM! But it's so much more. Needless to say we got this early on in the afternoon, spent the rest of the afternoon talking about it and then went back for more before we left! It's that good!

Pig Lickers

All I have t0 say about this new item is DUD! I thought that I would get the same sweet and salty effect of the Big Fat Bacon, but instead all you got was a mouthful of chocolate and cold bacon grease. They need to go back to the drawing board on this one.

Oh and the food FESTIVAL continued for the rest of the weekend too...

Heather Locklear has been blabbing about the fresh baked chocolate chip cookies at Target's Food Ave for a week now. Well, on Saturday while out on errands I finally had the opportunity to partake in this delight. Oh, it was definitely a delight (and I'm not even a big chocolate cookie fan). So much so, that I got another one on my way out. Damn, yet one more way Target picks my pocket!

Then on Sunday, I waddled my ever widening behind to the Uptown Famous Daves. For $15.95 they have a YUMMY All You Can Eat Buffet Brunch! There I managed to chow my way through fruit, breakfast potatoes, chix wings, mac and cheese, bacon, sausage, cheese eggs, rib tips, made to order omelet, pancakes, and french toast with a praline syrup. There were a few other buffet items (waffles, dessert, biscuits and gravy, muffins) but I didn't want to compromise any stomach space for anything I wasn't gung-ho about. They also have a Bloody Mary bar but believe it or not I wasn't really up for my fav beverage - maybe next time.


So, this week I have been trying to detox (not doing a very good job) before I go camping this weekend and eat even more junk! UUUGGGHHH! When will the madness end?